form: www.census2000.org January 27, 2003 CENSUS NEWS BRIEF 2003 Funding Bill Headed To House-Senate Conference Committee; Domestic Spending Constraints Could Threaten Future of American Community Survey Late last week, the U.S. Senate completed action on an omnibus appropriations bill that funds all non-defense government activities for Fiscal Year 2003 (FY03). House Joint Resolution 2 (H.J. Res. 2) covers eleven of thirteen regular appropriations bills that Congress failed to pass before adjourning last fall, including the Commerce, Justice, and State, The Judiciary and Related Agencies bill. (The Census Bureau is part of the Commerce Department.) The sweeping measure to fund federal agencies for the budget year that began last October 1 now heads to a conference committee, where House and Senate negotiators will try to agree on final spending levels. While the House did not pass its own version of the omnibus bill, House Republican appropriators unveiled a Commerce/Justice/State appropriations bill earlier this month, to indicate their position going into conference. Both the House and Senate have signaled their intent to cap spending for 2010 census planning at last year's level; the Senate allocation was a further reduction from Fiscal Year 2002. Senate Bill Fails To Cover Full ACS Test Program: The Senate-passed version of H.J. Res. 2 allocates $558.9 million for Census Bureau programs and activities, $146.4 million below the President's budget request for the current fiscal year. (The amount includes funds for a 4.1 percent federal civilian employee increase; the President has proposed a 3.1 percent pay increase.) The Periodic Censuses and Programs account ("Periodics"), one of two main funding categories for the Census Bureau, received $385.7 million, $114.6 million less than the Administration's request of $500.3 million. Appropriators noted that an additional $15 million in unspent funds from the previous year (called a "carry-over") would be available for Periodics programs. The Periodics account covers the decennial census and census support operations, including mapping and address list development, as well as other mandated cyclical activities such as the Economic Census. In a more detailed explanation accompanying the funding bill, Senate appropriators set aside roughly $95 million for 2010 census planning, substantially less than the President's request of $214.5 million. Appropriators further recommended that $42.8 million of the total amount be used for "design and planning" and $52.2 million be used for MAF/TIGER improvements, but made no mention of the national Supplementary Survey currently being conducted as part of American Community Survey development. Funding for the 700,00-housing unit Supplementary Survey was $29 million in FY02. The Census Bureau's "re-engineering" plan for 2010 includes three major initiatives: modernizing the Master Address File (MAF) and digital geographic database (the TIGER system); early planning, development, and testing of a "short form-only" census; and nationwide implementation of the American Community Survey (ACS), which would eliminate the need for a long form in future censuses. Senate appropriators separately allocated $27.1 million to continue data collection in the 31 American Community Survey test sites, bringing the total amount available for all 2010 census planning either to $122.1 million, or $137.1 million if the carry-over is applied to this program. The Census Bureau originally hoped to implement the ACS nationwide in FY03, at a cost of about $123 million. House Appropriators Signal Position on FY03 Census Bureau budget: The House of Representatives, meanwhile, will reconvene today after being in recess for two weeks. Unlike the Senate, the House did not consider an omnibus appropriations bill for FY03, but negotiators will go directly to a conference committee to work out a final measure with the Senate. (H.J. Res. 2, which originated in the House, passed that chamber on January 8. However, the bill was a continuing funding resolution to keep federal agencies operating at FY02 levels; the House approved the measure simply to serve as a legislative vehicle for the Senate's omnibus appropriations bill. The House then adjourned for two weeks, while the Senate began consideration of the FY03 funding bill by substituting its appropriations language for the original language of H.J. Res. 2.) On January 8, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State, and The Judiciary, introduced a separate funding measure for FY03 (H.R. 247). While not considered by either the Appropriations Committee or the full House, Chairman Wolf's bill offers a marker for the House's position in negotiations with the Senate. H.R. 247 would allocate $599.5 million for the Census Bureau, $105.8 million below the President's FY03 request. The Periodic Censuses and Programs account would receive $410.3 million, including $143.3 million for 2010 census planning. According to the Census Bureau's Congressional Affairs Office, an unofficial explanation of the Wolf bill, prepared by the Appropriations Committee, further earmarks $57.1 million for the American Community Survey. That amount is comparable to the FY02 funding level for the 31 ACS test sites and the national Supplementary Survey combined. The unofficial report indicates that $1 million of ACS funding should be used to evaluate the effects of voluntary response to the survey. The Census Bureau considers the ACS to be part of the decennial census, for which response is mandatory by law. It believes voluntary ACS response would increase costs and diminish data quality. However, key members of the Census Bureau's oversight committee have questioned the need for mandatory response to the ACS, in light of public concerns about privacy. Until Congress passes and the President signs the catch-all FY03 appropriations bill, the Census Bureau and other non-defense federal agencies will continue to operate under Fiscal Year 2002 spending levels. The current Continuing Budget Resolution, the eighth such stop-gap funding measure since FY03 began last fall, runs out on January 31. Congress would pass another Continuing Resolution if the House and Senate do not agree on a final omnibus funding bill by that date. The following chart compares relevant "line items" for the Census Bureau going into conference on the FY03 funding bill, based on the best available information about current funding levels and the House and Senate positions. All amounts are in millions of dollars and rounded to the nearest hundred thousand. FY02 FY03 FY03: FY03: (Actual)Request House Position Senate Position (Budget Authority) Census Bureau $544.8** $705.3 $599.5 $558.9 Periodic Censuses & Programs $375.4 $500.3 $410.3 $385.7 2010 Census Planning (total) $92.1= $214.5 $143.3 $95.0 2010: ACS $56.1= $121.2 $57.1 $27.1 2010: MAF/TIGER imprvmnts $15.0 $51.4 Unknown $52.2 2010: Design & planning $21.0 $41.9 Unknown $42.8 *Current budget request figures are modestly lower than those set forth in the budget justification submitted to Congress in February 2002, for reasons that are not entirely clear to the editor. **Included $54 million in carry-over funds from previous year. =Includes $27.1 million from the Continuous Measurement line item, which funded the 31 ACS test sites, and $29 million for the Supplementary Survey. President To Unveil 2004 Budget Request Next Week: President Bush is tentatively scheduled to send his Fiscal Year 2004 (FY04) budget request to Congress the week of February 3. No details about the Census Bureau's budget request for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2003, are available yet. However, senior White House officials have said publicly that the Administration's plan will hold discretionary federal spending to a four percent increase, with most of the additional spending going to homeland security and defense. Budgetary constraints could spell particular trouble for 2010 census planning. In the normal ten-year development and implementation cycle for a decennial census, funding demands are at their lowest in the "03" year, and then increase as the Census Bureau carries out field tests for several years, a dress rehearsal (in the "08" year), final address list compilation, and other critical preparations. Furthermore, full implementation of the American Community Survey in FY04 would require more than double the funding the Census Bureau is likely to receive for FY03. While other "Periodic" programs, such as the Economic Census, will need less money in FY04 than in FY03, the leap from test mode to full, ongoing implementation of the ACS in budgetary terms is daunting in the current economic climate. Census News Briefs are prepared by Terri Ann Lowenthal, an independent consultant in Washington, DC. Please direct questions about the information in this News Brief to Ms. Lowenthal at 202/484-2270 or by e-mail at <terriann2k(a)aol.com>om>. Thank you to the Communications Consortium Media Center for posting the News Briefs on the Census 2000 Initiative web site, at www.census2000.org. Please feel free to circulate this information to colleagues and other interested individuals.